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Pronunciation for the various words?

DDSNDDSN
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edited August 24, 2022 in Story Discussion
How do you pronounce some of these names, and is there a way to easily find out how it should be properly spoken? I have an ambition to make some videos talking about the lore and story of the game, but I don't want to sound like a fool while narrating.

Things like Sidhe Sneachta, Taillteann, Glas Ghaibhleann, Briogh, all these countless words/names that I'm dead certain there's no way I'm saying properly.

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  • HelsaHelsa
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    edited August 2, 2022
    DDSN wrote: »
    How do you pronounce some of these names, and is there a way to easily find out how it should be properly spoken? I have an ambition to make some videos talking about the lore and story of the game, but I don't want to sound like a fool while narrating.

    Things like Sidhe Sneachta, Taillteann, Glas Ghaibhleann, Briogh, all these countless words/names that I'm dead certain there's no way I'm saying properly.

    - The double L, in Welsh, as I recall is a kind of lateral fricative. Press your tongue behind your front top teeth and try to hiss like a cat.
    - In Irish bh is a V sound. The Irish version of Susan, Siobhan, is pronounced shivawn. I'm guessing that's the same in Welsh.
    - gh is probably your standard throat clearing consonant that we associate with Eastern Mediterranean languages.
    - this is a bit of a guess, but in Hindi dh is sort of a th-ish sound so I suspect it might be the same here.
    - cht is probably pronounced exactly as it's spelled.
    - e is probably pronounced ay.
    - a is probably ah, as per English.
    - i is probably ee.
    - o is probably an aw.
    - ea is probably ay-ah.
    - ai is probably like "eye" or "aye".
    - io is probably ee-aw, almost like a donkey!
    - r is probably rolled.
    - nn, no idea, maybe it's an n followed by a ng?

    I'm not Welsh though so ... um ... yeah.
    DDSN
  • DDSNDDSN
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    Wow, that was very detailed; thank you!
  • HelsaHelsa
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    edited August 2, 2022
    DDSN wrote: »
    Wow, that was very detailed; thank you!

    Fugitaboutit.

    @Crimsọn
    DDSN
  • FragarachFragarach
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    The Welsh language is Cymraeg. There's no Cymraeg in this game as far as I'm aware. Also Gaelic is only the language of the Scottish. Pretty much everything in mabinogi is Gaeilge (the Irish language). Thats mostly because everything in this game is taken from a mixture of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology and The Annals of Ireland, and all the figures and references are entirely from Irish mythology. In fact, Erinn is the common bastardisation of Eireann(Ireland), and Uladh is Gaeilge for Ulster (the northern part of Ireland).

    So basically there's nothing Welsh about this game at all, except the name Mabinogi which a bunch of Korean people must have gotten from googling something like "name for celtic stories" and seeing Mabinogian, and mistaking it for the definition of "collection of stories" as opposed to simply BEING a collection of stories. In fact, if you ask Nao what Mabinogi means she'll tell you it means story, which just goes to show the hilarious misunderstanding that was made.

    So there you go. Oh and for pronunciations, lets just put it this way: When it comes to Gaeilge there's no real grammatical consistency to the language, making it extremely difficult to learn or teach, so its a case of you're either fluent in it or you're not, and basically no ones fluent, so no one in Ireland speaks it. Still, a mandatory 13 years of ineffectively learning the language does give us an advantage in attempting to pronounce the names, and perhaps more importantly, how not to pronounce it lol.
    DDSN
  • FragarachFragarach
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    edited August 22, 2022
    Whoops just realised I was giving the impression that not even an Irish person would know how to pronounce the names in Mabinogi lol. Nah, the names in Mabinogi are all either straight forward, or pretty common. The main problem is that its very difficult to give pointers to a person who isnt familair with the language as Gaeilge suffers from an overwhelming amount of irregular words. For every grammatical tip I could give you, there's around twice as many words/phrases that are an exception. It makes learning it a complete pain. Like I said in the previous post, you literally just have to know every single word and how it works. You can just imagine how much we all hated having to learn it in school lol.
    DDSN
  • DDSNDDSN
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    Haha, damn; this would easily be fixed if they offered some sort of pronunciation guide, but I guess I have to make my best assumption and just roll with it.
  • FragarachFragarach
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    It's a group of Americans trying to translate a Korean translation of Irish. I wouldn't hold out hope for a guide lol.

    I can translate the names you posted at the top though for you:

    Sidhe Sneachta: Shee Snock-tah
    Tailteann: Tile(or tie-ill)-Cheen(or Chin) (depending on where you're from in Ireland. Each of the provinces of Ireland have slight variants in pronounciation of gaeilge)
    Glas Ghaibhleann: Gloss Gave-Linn
    Briogh: Bree (like the cheese....maybe, see below)

    There's a few translation issues in Mabinogi other than typo's, such as the complete lack of "fada's" even when there should be some. They're a grammatical thing added to vowels which elongate them, and can completely change the meaning of a word. For example Briogh is not a word I've encountered before but it looks like it almost definitely should have a fada over the i, like this: Bríogh. If that's the case, then its probably pronounced the way I suggested. If there isn't a fada however it could be pronounced Brogue(single rhyming with rogue). In fact even with a "í " there's a chance it might be pronounced "bree-eg(the eg part sounding sort of "ug" ish). Hell, since I've never heard it pronounced, and cant find any modern irish reference to it, it might even be one of the really annoying irregular words which means it could literally be anything from Brog, to Brock, to Bree-oh-guh, to Bruh/Bro/Brig/Thislanguageisajoke, or literally anything else.

    I'm 90% sure its "Bree", so I'm going to stick with that. Is there any other particular names/words you're interested in knowing how to pronounce? Or have I scared you off with the sheer nonsense that is this language?
    DDSN
  • DDSNDDSN
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    Not at all, I'll definitely try to compile some more words but that was very insightful, thank you for going so in depth with that explanation!
  • DDSNDDSN
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    edited August 24, 2022
    Okay here's some more names I'd love to hear pronounced:

    Uladh
    Ulaid
    Milletian
    Tir Chonaill
    Emain Macha
    Abb Neagh
    Fiodh
    Peaca
    Coill
    Gairech
    Sliab
    Cuilin
    Corrib
    Dugald
    Sen Mag
    Ceann
    Osna Sail
    Tuatha Dé Danann
    Mag Tuireadh
    Claíomh Solais
    Lia Fáil
    Aton Cimeni
    Neamhain
    Nuadha Airgetlam
    Tir Na Nog
    Tech Duinn
    Crom Bás
    Scuabtuinne
    Manannan mac Lir

    I'm sure there are more but that's all I can muster up at the moment.
  • HelsaHelsa
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    DDSN wrote: »
    Okay here's some more names I'd love to hear pronounced:

    Uladh
    Ulaid
    Milletian
    Tir Chonaill
    Emain Macha
    Abb Neagh
    Fiodh
    Peaca
    Coill
    Gairech
    Sliab
    Cuilin
    Corrib
    Dugald
    Sen Mag
    Ceann
    Osna Sail
    Tuatha Dé Danann
    Mag Tuireadh
    Claíomh Solais
    Lia Fáil
    Aton Cimeni
    Neamhain
    Nuadha Airgetlam
    Tir Na Nog
    Tech Duinn
    Crom Bás
    Scuabtuinne
    Manannan mac Lir

    I'm sure there are more but that's all I can muster up at the moment.

    Some of these terms have English and French corruptions in them.
  • FragarachFragarach
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    What Helsa said, and then some. They've absolutely butchered some names to the point where its difficult to tell if they're even irish. Anyway, I've marked some words with a "*" because they're a bit messier to pronounce, and I'll give my best shot of explaining them at the bottem. Here I go:

    Ulaidh/Ulaid: Ooh-la (like "ooh-la-la"). They're both the same word, just two different spellings of it.

    Milletian(Milesian): Me/mi-leh-she-en. (Maybe) Its a word that predates modern irish, and has like a billion different interpretations.

    Tir Chonaill: Tear(like crying) Kuh-nawl. "Chonail's Land" Places named after the famous people who lived there is pretty common.

    Emain Macha: Ay-Mawn Ma-kah.

    Abb Neagh: Ab Neigh(like a horse).

    Fiodh: *will leave this till the end lol.

    Peaca(Púca): Poo-kah. Púca means ghost. Peaca is probably just a hideous mistranslation.

    Coill: Quill(or Qwe-el)/Coy-el . Depends where you're from in ireland.

    Gairech: goy(rymes with boy, and weirdly also with guy)-ruck. Means laughter/laughing. I always thought the BST suited it well.

    Sliab(Sliabh) Cuilin: Sleeve Cool/Kull-in. The "Cuilin Mountains"

    Corrib: Car-rib

    Dugald: Just Dugald (Dug-awld). its an english version of an irish word.

    Sen Meg: Either not Irish or so poorly translated that we'll probably never know. Sen might be Sean(Shan) meaning old. Nothing is coming to mind when I look at Meg. I might have a eureka moment in the future like I did with Math(actually Maith) Dungeon.

    Port Ceann: Kyan(rymes with nyan, single syllable). Means "Head". BTW: Port Cobh: Cove

    Osna Sáil: Os(rhymes with gross)-Nah Saul.

    Tuatha Dé Danann: Too-ah Dee Dan-inn

    Mag Tuireadh: Mag Tur-rah

    Claíomh Solais: Claive(rhymes with glaive) Sol-us. Means "Sword of Light"

    Lia Fáil: Lie-ah Fall. "The Stone of Destiny". Loads of myths around this thing. All those alt-history people would have a field day with it

    Aton Cimeni: Mabinogi's only original character name! I liked the focus on them during g19, because it was the first time they delved deeper into actually in-game lore as opposed to just name dropping random irish mythological figures. As for pronunciation, your guess is as good as mine.

    Neamhain: Knave-awn. Meaning Divine/Heavenly.

    Nuadha Airgetlam(Airgead lamh): Nu-Ah (Nu rhyes with Moo) Arrrr-ah(like a pirate)-gid(hard g)-lawv(sorta like law-vuh, but needs to be pronounced as a single syllable. Check out the the bottem.*)

    Tir Na Nog(Tir na nÓg): Tear Nah Nogue(pronounced exactly like rogue, just replace the "r" with an "n"). Yes, the spelling within the brackets is correct. Tir means "land", na is "the" and "Óg" is young. The n is put in front of the "Óg" for grammatical reasons.

    Tech Duinn(or Teach Donn in modern irish): Choc-done. The Brown house. Interpretated as "dark house." A creepy otherworld.

    Crom Bás: Krom-Boss (pronounced with a bit of an aww like bawws).

    Scuabtuinne: Scoob-chin-ah. Scuab means brush, and apparently tuinne means wave, but I've never heard it pronounced so I might be slightly off. Could be tune-ah.

    Manannán mac Lir: Muh-nan-nawn(rhymes with lawn) mac Leer. Lir means sea, and Mac means Son. Yes, any irish name with mac in front of it is literally the person saying "I am X, son of Y", with son meaning descended from as opposed to literally being their child. Also any name with O' in front of it is just the gender neutral version: "of". "Daughter of" is Ní (pronounced nee), but you dont seem to see that much of it outside of Ireland. No one takes any of this literally of course nowadays.



    *Fiodh, (Airgead)lamh

    Both of those words are single syllable words which I cant think of anything that sounds similar to them in the english language. The best idea I've got is to break the single syllable's into multiple parts, like turning the english word "Yes" into "yeah-es." Of course thats completely wrong, but if you say it fast enough, and blur the individual parts together it'll eventually sound like you're saying yes.

    So for the following words dont bother with proper enunciating(we irish never do lol). Deliberately slur/blur the parts, and keeping saying them faster, faster, and faster until they become a single syllabel word. These words are meant to be pronounced quickly so theres no such thing as going "too fast" here.

    Fiodh: Fee-oh. (will rhyme with flow when you get it right) Also theres that island...
    Ceo: Key-oh (rhymes with the above and means mist)

    lamh: law-of (remember: one syllabel)

    So airgeadlamh, or the horrible mispelling of his name is basically arrr-ah-gid (which means money in modern times, but used to mean silver in the past, before silver became the celts main form of currency) -law-of(one syllable, meaning hand).


    Well there you go. Damn, this post ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would lol.

    DDSN
  • DDSNDDSN
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    Damn dude awesome work, seriously, well done.

    This was very insightful and I'll definitely post more if I find any other words or names.
  • EiokiyhEiokiyh
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    We do have some Welsh names, if you ever want to get really fancy, lol.
    "Llywelyn" can be pronounced with the double L which is made by putting your tongue somewhat behind your front teeth and kind of blowing.

    Anything Welsh that has a CH is pronounced like the ch in Loch

    U in welsh is like I

    F is like V

    R is slightly trilled (or in some peoples cases, you sound like a motorcycle. )

    in RH you would kind of start the H first and then go into the trilled R

    DD is "Th"

    But like Fragarach said, you'd never really need this knowledge in this game. But I guess for anyone who wants to roleplay as a Welsh person or read The Mabinogi.

    On a side note, In the Divine Knights chapter, we have biblical terms.
    So like Zebach you'd probably pronounce that more throaty CH like how i explained in Welsh. I have heard people just say Zebak.
    I'm assuming Sephirot in Coil abyss just refers to the Sefirot in Kabbalah
    DDSN
  • FragarachFragarach
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    edited September 2, 2022
    Oh Llywelyn! Completely forgot about that one. Melwyn sounds pretty welsh as well. Also, I remember spotting a scottish name or two at some point, but I cant bring them to mind. It can be somewhat difficult at times to tell whether somethings gaelic or just misspelt gaeilge, since they're quite similar. Luckily cymraeg doesnt have that problem lol. Its funny though that despite drastically different spellings, the pronounciations can be quite similar at times. Take the word "School". Its scoil in irish, sgoil in scottish, and ysgol, yet they all sound alike.

    For the nexon employees in S.Korea though, they probably thought it was all just one crazy celtic language lol.
  • HelsaHelsa
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    edited September 3, 2022
    Isn't the Dunbar in Dunbarton Scotish?

    As for Aton Cimeni, cimeni, I think is latin for chimney, as for Aton, to me it looks Egyptian.
  • FragarachFragarach
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    edited September 3, 2022
    Dumbarton is a town in Scotland, but there's also a dunbarton in northern Ireland, but it does sound slightly more scottish then irish. I also remember thinking that the name Tarlach might be scottish, since its spelt more like gaelic than gaeilge, but apparently its not. Also, it just occurred to me that Math dungeon which I said was probably a typo of Maith(good) dungeon, might actually be scottish as well, so I googled the gaelic for good just incase, and yep, math is good in gaelic. The big problem here is that most of the world just uses gaelic to refer to both irish and scottish, so when nexon was googling names they probably just mixed in the occasional scottish word without realising.
    Helsa wrote: »
    As for Aton Cimeni, cimeni, I think is latin for chimney, as for Aton, to me it looks Egyptian.

    Latin for chimney is camini. Cimeni is a surname apparently, Cimen being turkish in origin. Then again there's loads of typo's in this game so thats probably a coincidence, as its more likely the name has either missing letters and/or is misspelt.

    Aton was the name the egyptians gave to the sun which they worshipped as a deity way back. Of course this could also be a typo, and it could be Atum/Atem which is also egyptian and is the name of the first deity to have existed before reality came into being, which sounds a bit more likely. Of course, we could be completely off here, and it might even just be Atam(Adam) which is hebrew. Meaning he might literally just be Adam Cimeni, a perfectly mundane name. Sadly we'll probably never know how they came up with that name, since none of the people who worked on mabinogi back then are still working on the mabinogi korea team.
  • HelsaHelsa
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    edited September 3, 2022
    Way back when the English tried to conquer Ireland didn't they 'encourage' Scots to settle in Northern Ireland? Perhaps that's why there's a Dunbarton there too?

    Aton is the Egyptian God of the Sun? Wow, I didn't know that, I just thought the word looked Eqyptian. Maybe cimeni comes from ancient Egyptian somehow?

    As for it being Latin, Google Translate can be confusing, it says:
    cemeni (as Latin) is chimney (as English),
    chimney (as English) is camini (as Latin),
    camini (as Latin) is stove (as English),
    stove (as English) is caminus (as Latin)
    caminus (as Latin) is stove (as English).



  • FragarachFragarach
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    edited September 3, 2022
    Ah google translate. It's improved a lot over the years, but its still a mess.
  • EiokiyhEiokiyh
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    Fragarach wrote: »
    Oh Llywelyn! Completely forgot about that one. Melwyn sounds pretty welsh as well. Also, I remember spotting a scottish name or two at some point, but I cant bring them to mind. It can be somewhat difficult at times to tell whether somethings gaelic or just misspelt gaeilge, since they're quite similar. Luckily cymraeg doesnt have that problem lol. Its funny though that despite drastically different spellings, the pronounciations can be quite similar at times. Take the word "School". Its scoil in irish, sgoil in scottish, and ysgol, yet they all sound alike.

    For the nexon employees in S.Korea though, they probably thought it was all just one crazy celtic language lol.

    Yeahh luckily Cymraeg is super easy to read as long as you remember the special letters. Even the "infamous" Llanfair PG, is pretty easy to do. I think the main thing that will confuse learners with it is, like, treigladau.

    There's also like Aranwen, Heledd, Heulfryn, but nothing that would be like super story essential I guess. We have a Bran in g14, not sure if that can be a reference to Bendigeidfran

    My personal cope theory is that since children are mostly told the stories from the Mabinogi, and the OST is "An Old Story From Grandma" that our real character is just a child with an overactive imagination, just imagining themselves in the place of a hero in several stories that they are told. Then I remember that it's just most likely the Koreans pulling stuff from everywhere with Google
  • FragarachFragarach
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    edited September 3, 2022
    I'm still impressed that this Mabinogi team can even come close to somewhat accurate translations considering they have to translate it from korean first. I mean just look at this name I took from the korean website just now: 크롬 바스 추. The roman alphabet version of it is "keulom baseu chu." According to google translate, that's Chrome Bass, but I know from the context of the page I took it from that its meant to be Crom Bás. Translating a translation of some drastically different languages is no mean feat, so you have to hand it to them for doing a fairly decent job.